ABC won the Monday night ratings battle with a new edition of The Bachelorette, preliminary figures suggest.

The latest episode of the reality dating show drew 7.3m viewers from 8pm, but peaked at 7.8m for the following hour. From 10pm, a new instalment of Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition dipped slightly to 5.7m.

NBC came in second for the night, with an America's Got Talent rerun at 8pm drawing the network's highest viewership of 6.2m.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Audience numbers fell by a million for an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent at 9pm (5.2m), but rose again from 10pm for an unseen episode of Law & Order: LA (6m).

In third place, CBS pulled in 4.3m for a How I Met Your Mother double-bill rerun at 8pm. A repeat of Two and a Half Men saw ratings jump to 6.15m, but following reruns of Mike & Molly (6.05m) and Hawaii Five-0 (6m) saw audience numbers dip slightly.

The Fox schedule for Monday night was dominated by Masterchef reruns. The Gordon Ramsay-fronted cookery series drew 3m for the first hour, but rose to 5m from 9pm.

Meanwhile, a 90210 rerun pulled in 835,000 viewers for The CW at 8pm. Ratings then fell dramatically for a Gossip Girl repeat at 9pm, which managed numbers of just 470,000.